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COPYRIGHT, 1913 

MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY 

BOSTON 



©CI.A346892 




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MACUII \R 1'A!'KI;r COMPANY, PRESENT LOCATION, 398 400 WASHINGTON STREET 




F all the old streets of New England there is none 
which can boast of a more notable history than 
Washington Street, and no part of the present long 
thoroughfare is more interesting in this respect than 
[V r" ^~^J I\ the short section, or link, between School and Milk 
^^^jjj^^^^^j Streets and Summer and V/inter Streets, known 
through Colony and Province days and till long 
after the Revolution as Marlborough Street, of which this little book 
especially treats. 

The story of this street is the story of Boston's first thoroughfare 
and begins with the beginnings of Boston. As the first " High Waye 
towards Roxburie," then the only avenue to the mainland, composed 
of the first twisting roads and paths struck out in succession through 



the length of the originally "pear-shaped" peninsula and over its 
slender stem — the mile-long, tide-washed Neck, — this thoroughfare 
was distinctively the first Boston Main Street. 

At the outset the highway was but the germ of a thoroughfare ; 
and for more than thirty years from the town's start it extended no 
further than to the present Boylston Street line. Beyond that line, 
or above Essex Street, there was during this time only a footpath 
or rough cartway " towards Roxburie." And after further extension 
was effected Boylston Street yet remained practically the thorough- 
fare's terminus with respect to its occupation by shops, taverns, 
dwellings, and mansion houses, throughout the Colony period and for 
the greater part of the Province period. Beyond Boylston Street 
there were few houses upon it and fewer shops till after the Revolu- 
tion. Above Dover Street there were before the Revolution very 
few inhabitants ; and so late as 1800 only one or two houses were 
counted from the site of the present Cathedral of the Holy Cross to 
Roxbury. 




CORNER SPRING LANE AND WASHINGTON STREET IN 1870 




THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN COLONIAL DAYS, FROM AN OLD LITHOGRAPH 




THE OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1796 



The first link, which was marked out with the town's initial street- 
ways and lanes, comprises the bow between the present Adams Square 
and School Street. This led from the Town Dock, at Dock Square, 
around by the town's first central point, where were the "sawe- 
pitte " for turning out the logs for the first houses, the first market- 
place, the first stocks and whipping post, and later the first Town- 
House, now marked by the Old State House ; and thence to the house- 
lots and gardens of first settlers southward. The second link, shortly 
added, extended from School to Summer Street, then " The Mylne 
Street," or "Mill Lane," leading to "Widow Tuthill's Windmill" 
(she the relict of Richard Tuttle, miller, succeeding to his business) 
which stood near the point that became the "Church Green" of 
after days, at the present junction of Summer and Bedford Streets. 
The third link was an early extension to Boylston Street, at that time 
" Frogg Lane " running alongside the Common toward the Back Bay, 
which then made up to the present Park Square. At the end of this 
third link connection was made with the first path to Roxbury, a rough 
beach road, which ran from near the Essex Street corner along the South 
Cove beach. The South Cove then stretched westerly to within a 
short distance of the present line of Washington Street near Essex 
Street, and north of Beach Street, which originally was a beach ; and 
here, turning southward, it ran parallel with the Washington-Street 
line up to the line of the present Dover Street and beyond, a strip of 




THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH AS IT APPEARS TODAY 




WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING NORTH FROM TEMPLE PLACE 



land intervening between the water and road wide enough only to 
provide a single houselot in depth. On the west side the Back Bay 
turned toward the Washington Street line at about where Pleasant 
Street enters, and swept close to this line at Dover Street. 

These three links — from the Town Dock to Frog Lane — con- 
stituted the thoroughfare till 1663 or 1664, when the further extension 
beyond to Dover Street, or to the " Old Fortification," a little south 
of Dover Street, at practically then the town's end, was laid out. The 
" Old Fortification " was the remnant of a fort early built in place of 
the first barrier erected at this point as a defence against any sudden 
attack by Indians. It had two gates, one for teams, the other for foot 
passers. Regular watches and wards were maintained here, and the 
gates were closed at sundown. 

Just outside the Fortification the Neck was at its narrowest. 
At this point was the inner Roxbury Gate also early set up. The 
outer Gate, " & Style next vnto Roxburie," was erected at the Rox- 
bury line, marked now by a memorial stone in the thoroughfare. 
Between the two Gates were upland and swamp, the latter flowed by the 
tides. In early days the Neck was a perilous place, particularly in the 
rough seasons. Winthrop relates under date of March, 1639, how, 
"one of Roxbury" having sent to Boston "his servant maid for a 




CORNER WASHINGTON AND SUMMER STREETS LOOKING TOWARD THE COMMON 

IN 1856 



barber chirurgeon to draw his tooth," maid and barber " lost their way 
in their passage between, during a violent snowstorm," and how they 
" were not found until many days after, and then the maid was found 
in one place, and the man in another both frozen to death." Nearly 
half a century later Judge Sewall recorded in his inimitable Diary : 
" Novr. 26 [1685]. Mary an Indian, James's Squaw, was Frozen 
to death upon the Neck near Roxbury Gate on Thorsday night Nov"^ 
27th, '85, being fudled." 

The connecting Neck roads were earliest maintained by individuals 
having grants from the Neck Commons conditioned upon such main- 
tenance ; or earlier paid for such service. The connecting highway 
on the Roxbury side is recorded as laid out between the Boston line 
and Roxbury Street in 1662. Before that it apparently was a rough 
cartway. 



Our thoroughfare was variously designated through the Colony 
period, — " The High Waye towards Roxburie," " The High Street," 
"The Broad Way," "The Town High Way to Roxbury," "The 
Broad Street," "The Great Road Leading to Roxbury," — and its 
several links were without official names till well into the second decade 
of the Province period. In fact, none of the streets, lanes, or alleys 
of the town, though generally informally named, bore official names 
till the year 1708. Seven years earlier, September, 1701, the select- 




CORNER OF WASHINGTON AND COURT STREETS, PRESENT SITE OF THE AMES BUILDING 







ItO'iSC (,()TI1IN<. 





THE BEGINNING OF WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING TOWARD DOCK SQUARE ABOUT 

1860 



men were empowered by town-meeting vote to "assign and aflBx 
Names unto the Severall streets & Lanes within this Town, so as they 
shall judg meet and convenient," but the business was not completed 
till that time. In the list then adopted and caused to be recorded in 
the "Town Book," the thoroughfare's links are found thus defined 
and designated, reckoned in order from the southward — at the Old 
Fortification : 

" The broad Street or Highway from ye Old Fortification on ye neck Leading 
into ye Town as far as the Corner of ye Late Deacon Eliots House Orange Street. 

" The Street from ye corner of the House in ye Tenure of Cap* Turfrey nigh 
Deacon Eliots Corner leading into Town by ye House of Sam^ Sewall Esqr as far 
as Doct Okes Corner Newbery Street. 

" The Broad Street leading from Penemans Corner at ye head of Sumer Street 
passing by ye South Meeting House to Haughs Corner Marlborough Street. 

" The Street from the Lower end of School Street Leading North'y as far as 
Mr Clark the Pewterers Shop Corn Hill. 

The " Late Deacon Eliots House " was on the south corner of 
Boylston Street, " Frog Lane." He was Jacob Eliot, a founder of the 
South Church, and a large land holder. His estate on this corner 
comprised his house and large garden lot. This link had been laid 
out through his " Field " which spread southward from the present 
Eliot Street, and through " Coleburn's Field " which adjoined Eliot's, 
and the south bound of which was at the north side of the present 
Castle Street. " Coleburne " was Deacon William Coleborn, or 
Colborn, a neighbor of EHot's and also a townsman of consequence. 
His house and garden were opposite Eliot's, on the north corner of 
Frog Lane. The site of Eliot's house at a later day was occupied 
by " Peggy Moore's " tavern, where the country farmers coming into 
town with their garden truck and other farm products were wont to 
stop. So sharp and keen was the countrymen's bartering here that 
the place came to be dubbed "Shaving Corner." Peggy Moore's 
successor was the more dignified Boylston Market, erected early in 
the nineteenth century. This, one of Bulfinch's notable designs in 
public buildings, and named for a generous member of the Boylston 
family — Ward Nicholas Boylston, the giver of Boylston Hall to Har- 
vard College, — survived till it had attained the distinction of a vene- 
rated landmark, when it in turn succumbed to the destroyer, much 
lamented by old Bostonians, and made way for the present business 
block on this corner. The name of Orange selected for this link was, 
obviously, in honor of the house of Orange. 

The " House in y^ Tenure of Cap* Turfrey " may have been at 
about the corner of Essex Street. The " House of Sam" Sewall 
Esq"^ " was where is now the Jordan Marsh Company's main store, 
midway between Avon and Summer Streets. He was that rare 
personage in Colonial history, Judge Samuel Sewall, of the " witch- 




WASHINGTON STREET, FROM WATER STREET TO THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN 1857 



craft" court that condemned the "witches" of Salem, and the 
choicest of Boston diarists, whose Diary of intimate details of Boston 
life between the years 1674 and 1729 is to Boston what Pepys' was to 
London. In this house much of that Diary was written. 

" Doct. Okes Corner " was the south corner of Summer Street. 
" Doct. Okes " was Dr. Thomas Oakes, a brother of the Rev. Urian 
Oakes, minister of Cambridge and president of Harvard College, 
1631-81. He was a favorite practitioner, and Judge Sewall's family 
physician, frequently mentioned in the Diary. He was also a man of 
affairs. After the overthrow of Andros by the "bloodless revolu- 
tion " of 1689, he was one of its two members which the General 
Court sent to England as agents of the colony with Rev. Increase 
Mather and Sir Henry Ashurst. 

" Peneman's Corner at y^ head of Sumer Street " was the north 
corner. Summer Street appears to have been thus named at this 
time. At least it was called " Seven Star Lane " in place of the Mill 
Lane so late as 1704, for Sewall mentions it in his Diary at that time. 
The present official Record of Streets sets it down as Seven Star 





WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING NORTH FROM. FRANKLIN STREET, IN 1872 




NEWSPAPER ROW, WASHINGTON STREET, IN 1870 



Lane from 1758 to 1773. The name was taken from the Seven Star 
Inn which stood on the upper corner of Bishop's Lane, now Hawley 
Street, and was succeeded by the first Trinity Church erected in 1734- 
35, which, in 1828, made way for the second Trinity — that massive 
temple of rough-hewn granite and ponderous square front tower, 
which went down in the " Great Fire of 1872," its broken tower and 
partly crumbled walls presenting the most picturesque ruin of all in 
that costly conflagration. The " Peneman " at the Street's head was 
presumably James Peneman. In the Selectmen's Records, under 
date of March 6th, 1710-11, and again March 19th, " Doct. James 
Peneman " is named with others to be " Posted up as Tipplers." 
The bibulous gentleman and the corner occupant may have been one 




FIRST CHURCH OF BOSTON, SECOND LOCATION, ON SITE OF ROGERS BUILDING 



and the same. A later record is more reputable: " [June 22, 1714]. 
Liberty is granted to James Peneman to sett two posts in y^ H. way 
before his House to range w*^ M.'' Marions posts Seven foot north ward 
of y^ corner of his House." Mr. Marion was Deacon John Marion, 
long a selectman. Penniman's Corner, Summer Street, is mentioned 
in the Town Records in 1735, in the town's ward divisions. 

" Y^ South Meeting House " was the first South Church, the 
"little cedar meeting-house " erected in 1669-70 which the present 
brick Old South succeeded in 1729-30. This was the church in which 
Margaret Brewster, the Quaker, made that demonstration on a July 
Sunday of 1677 which Sewall thus describes: "In Sermon Time a 
Female Quaker slipt in covered with a Canvas Frock, having her 
hair dishevelled and Loose, and powdered with Ashes resembling a 
flaxen or white Periwigg, her face as black as Ink, being led by two 
Quakers and followed by two more. It occasioned a great and very 
amazing Uproar." And well it might. For Mistress Brewster thus 
arrayed in the Biblical " sackcloth and ashes," delivered to the startled 
congregation a solemn warning of the approach upon the town of a 
great calamity " called the black pox," as a punishment for the per- 
secution of the Quakers ; then slipt out with her companions as quietly 
as she had entered. Subsequently the unhappy woman was sentenced 




RUINS OF THE FIRE OF 1872 AT THE CORNER OF SUMMER AND WASHINGTON STREETS 



for this oflfence to be " whipt at the carts tail up and down the town 
with twenty lashes," and duly suffered the dreadful penalty. It was 
this Puritan meetinghouse that in 1686 Andros ordered opened Sunday 
forenoons to the first Episcopal Church which had been established 
in the Town-House, the Colonial council having refused the use of 
any of the meetinghouses ; and upon one occasion, when the Church 
of England service extended into the afternoon reserved for the 
regular orthodox congregation. Judge Sewall chronicled the " sad 
sight " it was " to see how full the street was of people, gazing and 
moving to and fro because they had not entrance into the church." 
Here in 1688, on a winter's night, was performed the ceremonious 
burial service over Lady Andros, the governor's American wife, of 
which our diarist gives this vivid relation. "Friday, Feb. 10. 1687, 
. . . Between 7. and 8. (Lychors illuminating the cloudy air) The 
Corps was carried into the Herse drawn by Six Horses. The Souldiers 
making a Guard from the Governor's House down the Prison Lane 
[Court Street] to the South Meetinghouse, there taken out and carried 
in at the western dore, and set in the Alley before the pulpit, with Six 
Mourning Women by it. House made light with Candles and Torches. 
Was a great noise and clamor to keep people out of the House, that 
might not rush in too soon. ... It seems Mr. Ratcliflf's Text was. 
Cry, all flesh is Grass." It was here in 1697, five years after the Salem 
witchcraft frenzy, at the service on the Fast Day of ' ' humiliation and 
penitence " for what had been amiss in the Colony's acts in that tragedy, 
that Judge Sewall humbly made his public declaration of contrition 
for his share, as a judge, in the shame, standing up in his pew as his 
" bill," which he had slipped into the minister's hand, was read from 
the pulpit, and " bowing when finished." And this was the little 
meetinghouse in which, in January, 1705-06, on the day of his birth, 
Benjamin Franklin was christened, the infant philosopher being brought 
across from his birthplace, the humble tenement that stood opposite 
the meetinghouse's side, and marked by the building No. 19 Milk 
Street. 

" Haugh^ Corner" was the south corner of School Street: so 
called from Atherton Hough, whose house and garden were first here. 
He had been an alderman in old Boston in England and had come 
out with the Rev. John Cotton. 

The name of Marlborough was given this link in honor of the 
great English soldier. 

" The Lower end of School Street," was the north corner marked 
by the Hutchinson lot, within which was first, from 1633 to 1637, the 
home of Mistress Anne Hutchinson the central figure in the fierce 
" Antinomian Controversy," resulting in her banishment, "for 
traducing the ministers and their ministry in the country," in holding 
to the " covenant of faith " as against a " covenant of works," — and 




THE PULPIT OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN 1850 




WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM WATER STREET, IN 1850, FROM AN 
ETCHING MADE AT THE TIME 



the banishment of several others and the disarming and disfranchise- 
ment of many more, of her adherents. " M"^ Clark the Pewterer " 
is unknown to fame. His shop was presumably at the head of the 
Town Dock. 




THE OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE, WASHINGTON AND SCHOOL STREETS, IN 1905 



In the next publication of a list of streets, which was made in 
the " Vade Mecum in America, A Companion for Traders and Travel- 
lers," issued in 1732, " Peneman's Corner " became " Bethune's 
Corner"; and " M"^ Clark the Pewterer^ Shop," " Colson's Stone 
Store." Colson's stood fronting Dock Square. 

No further list of streets was published till after the Revolution. 
Then, in 1788, the selectmen issued a " Supplementary List," record- 
ing the names of ' ' some new streets and the alterations made subse- 
quently to the Revolution in the name of old ones " ; and in this, with 
the changes of King to State Street, Queen to Court, and so on, the 
name of " Washington Street " makes its first appearance. It had 
been given that year — July 4th quite fittingly — to the Neck part 
of this thoroughfare: "From Orange Street at the Fortification to 
the Bounds of the Town at the Roxbury Line." The next year, 1789, 
it was properly dedicated when President Washington, upon his 
memorable visit to New England, made his stately entry into the town 
over it — after having been held up at the Roxbury line in the chilling 




LOOKING DOWN FROM MILK m REET, FROM WASHINGTON STREET AFTER THE GREAT 

FIRE OF 1872 



air (it was late October) such an unconscionable time by an alterca- 
tion between the Boston selectmen and Sheriff Henderson, represent- 
ing Governor Hancock, over the control of the escorting procession, 
which ended with the sheriff's triumph only with his threat to " make 
a hole " through some of the town's officers, that many in the waiting 
crowd caught an influenza which local distemper long after was termed 
" the Washington cold." 

The other links of the thoroughfare retained their Colonial names 
for thirty-five years longer. The next official list of streets issued in 
1800 (no list appeared in the first Boston Directories issued respec- 
tively in 1789 and 1796), a print of Benjamin Edes & Son, leading 
printers of that day, showed these changes in the definition of the thor- 
oughfare's bounds : 

Orange Street — from "Deacon Brown's, where the Old Fortification stood, 
to Mr Morse's corner store head of Essex Street." 

Newbury — " thence to Dr. Jarvis's Corner, at the turning to Trinity Church." 
Marlborough — "to Brimmer's Corner at the bottom of School Street'." 
Cornhill — "to the Store of Mr. Tuckerman opposite Sam Elliot's." 

From the latter point " round Faneuil Hall (including the late 

Town Dock) & back by S, Brazer's corner to King's Tavern," were 

the bounds of Dock and Market Squares. 



" Deacon Brown's" warehouse was where the William's Market 
House long stood, and is now a theatre. It was called the " Green 
Store " from the color adopted for its exterior. It was succeeded by 
the " Green Stores " of John D. Williams which made way for the 
William's Market. The British post was here at the time of the Siege. 
The Old Fortification in this case was that which Gage had strength- 
ened. " Dr. Jarvis's Corner" was presumably Dr. Charles Jarvis's. 
In the Directory of 1789 " Jarvis buildings, Newbury Street " are 
named. " Brimmer's Corner " was the old Hutchinson estate corner, 
which Mr. Herman Brimmer had acquired in 1795, and was now 
marked by the present building, dating from 1712, which later became 
the famous " Old Corner Bookstore." 

The old Colonial names were all finally discarded in 1824, and the 
name of Washington applied to the whole thoroughfare within the 
then Boston bounds. The next year it was given to the connecting 
parts in Roxbury. In subsequent years connecting outward high- 
ways received it, and the northern city end was extended, till ulti- 
mately Washington Street became the cross -state thoroughfare of 
today reaching from Haymarket Square through the length of Boston 
and towns beyond to Providence in Rhode Island. 

The aspect of the Colonial thoroughfaj;e — the three links that 
came to be Cornhill, Marlborough and Newbury Streets — • may be 
pictured with accuracy in detail practically from the beginning. 




IjiliU 
lliiii 



HiillT H: A I 

i\ itarl It". . ? ; 



III 



THE LAMB TAVERN, LOCATED ON THE PRESENT SITE OF THE ADAMS HOUSE 




CORNER HARVARD PLACE AND WASHINGTON STREET IN 1856 



Starting from the Town Dock, we have, in the Cornhill link, 
first, at the head of Dock Square, or about what is now the southeast 
corner of Adams Square, " The King's Arms " tavern, which flourished 
from 1650 or earlier into the Province period. At the turn of the 
thoroughfare from Dock Square, on the west side: the house, garden, 
and "close" of Captain William Tyng, brother of Edward Tyng, 
both possessors of large estates. East side, opposite the foot of the 
present Cornhill: the house, garden, and "housings," including two 
shops, of Major Edward Gibbons. One of the shops was occupied 
by Major Thomas Savage, tailor, he of Indian wars fame. Northwest 
corner of Court Street, the Ames building site : house and yard of the 
Rev. Henry Dunster, first president of Harvard College. He moved 
early to Cambridge. North east corner of State Street: house and 
shop of John Cogan. Cogan's was the first shop for merchandise 
opened in the town — in 1634. Thus he was the earliest Boston mer- 
chant, and this thoroughfare was the first shopping street. Cogan 
was a man of consequence in the community. He had other shops, 
and other estates. He married Governor Winthrop's widow — the 
governor's fourth wife, — who survived him, thrice widowed, for she 



was a widow when married to the governor. West side : house and 
garden of John Leverett, later " the miUtary governor," who had served 
in Cromwell's armies as a captain of horse through the whole Civil 
War. East side: the marketstead, from 1630, till the erection of the 
first Town and State House, in 1657-58. In course of time the Town 
House became surrounded by booksellers' shops. Southeast corner 
of State Street : house and garden of Major, after Captain, Robert 
Keayne, tailor, and merchant, who became the richest man in the town 
in his day ; most distinguished as a founder and the leading charter 
member of the Honorable Artillery Company, as maker of the longest 
will on record, and as provider for the first Town-House. Public 
spirited as he was, he could not escape fine of the court and discipline 
of the church on charges of taking exorbitant profits in the sale of foreign 
commodities ^" in some, above six-pence in the shilling profit, in 
some, above eight-pence." In the next century Daniel Henchman's 
bookstore long occupied this corner ; and here, in the employ of Hench- 
man's successors, Wharton Sc Bowers, General Harry Knox began 
his career as a booksellers' clerk. Early Knox set up his own estab- 
lishment, the " New London Bookstore," on the same side of the thor- 
oughfare, opposite Williams Court. West side, where is now Rogers 
Building: the second meetinghouse, built in 1640, after the first one 
was given up. At a later day, south of Court Avenue, " near the Old 
Meetinghouse" was Nicholas Boone's bookshop from which in 1704 
was published The Boston News Letter, the first newspaper in America 
to be permanently established. Above the meetinghouse : house and 
garden of Major-General Robert Sedgwick. Nearly opposite the head 
of Water Street: Cole's " Ordinary," the first tavern in the town, 
1634. Above, to the School Street corner: the Hutchinson house and 




PLAN OF BOSTON IN 1800, SHOWING MARLBOROUGH (NOW WASHINGTON) STREET 




OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1805. SHOWING SECOND LOCATION OF FIRST CHURCH, WHERE 
THE ROGERS BUILDING NOW STANDS 



garden lot. Again on the east side — ■ where the Globe Building 
stands: house and garden of Richard Fairbanks; later, the "Blue 
Anchor Tavern." Between north of Water Street and Spring Lane: 
house and garden of Deacon Thomas Oliver. Spring Lane : the early 
" Spring-gate," leading to the public spring and watering place. 

All the structures of the Colony period which we have mentioned, 
in this Cornhill link, dwellings, shops, taverns, the Town-House, the 
Meetinghouse, disappeared in the second decade of the Province 
period, wiped out by the " Great Fire of 1711," the eighth disastrous 
visitation by fire that the town had suffered in its short history. Start- 
ing early on an October evening near the Meetinghouse, in the back- 
yard of a tenement on a court, among a heap of oakum and combustible 
rubbish which a wretched old drunken oakum-picker had been over- 
hauling with a light, it swept on a high wind both sides of Cornhill ; 
and also spread over all the upper part of King Street, and through 
Pudding Lane — Devonshire Street — - between Water Street and 
Spring Lane. Increase Mather found the cause of it in the wrath 
of God at the profanation of the Sabbath by the generality. " Has 
not God's Holy Day been Prophaned in New England? Have not 




CORNER WASHINGTON AND WATER STREETS, WHERE THE JOURNAL BUILDING NOW 

STANDS 



Burdens been carried through the streets on the Sabbath Day? Have 
not Bakers, Carpenters, and other Tradesmen been employed in Servile 
Works on the Sabbath Day? " he queried in his sermon, " Burnings 
Bewayled," the Sunday after. The town and the selectmen however, 
instead of buttressing the Sunday laws more practically stiffened the 
building regulations. Accordingly a better Cornhill arose. The 
Meetinghouse was rebuilt in brick instead of wood ; so were the Town 
and State House (to be burned again in 1747, and rebuilt in 1748 as 
we see it, practically, today); and so were the best of the houses. 
The " Old Corner Bookstore " of after years is supposed to have been 
the first of these best houses erected. 

In the Colonial Marlborough link, with the Atherton Haugh lot 
marking the bound on the west side, we have, at the outset, the lot 
of Governor Winthrop extending from Spring Lane to Milk Street as 
the east side bound; and above these, on either side, the houses and 
gardens of notables and artisans comfortably intermingled. In course 
of time the modest mansion of the first governor of the Colony arose 
on his lot (his second home, the first one having been on King -State 
Street), and some four decades later, on the opposite side of the way, 
the far grander mansion which became the official dwelling of the 
royal governors of the Province ; the two, in marked contrast, giving 
a special distinction to this part of the link, which might well have 
been termed " Governor's Row." 

The Winthrop mansion became the South Church parsonage 
with the erection of the first South Meetinghouse on the " Governor's 
Green " at its side, in 1669. Here the Rev, Thomas Prince, among 
its most distinguished occupants, wrote his "Annals"; and it was 
from his library, bequeathed by him to the church, and stored in the 
" steeple chamber " of the present Old South at the time of the 
Revolution, that the Bradford manuscript history of Plymouth Colony 
was taken during the Siege, when the meetinghouse was used as a 
riding school for Burgoyne's troopers, to be found a century after 
in England and graciously restored to the State. The old mansion 
remained, a treasured landmark, till the British soldiers pulled it 
down in the winter of the Siege for firewood. 

On the west side, at first, as recorded in the Town Book of Pos- 
sessions, we have, next above the Atherton Haugh corner: the house 
and garden of Francis Lyle, or Lysle, a barber-surgeon, skilful in his 
trade ; and next above Lysle : the house and garden of Thomas Millard, 
which later became the Province House estate. Millard died in 1669 
and his home lot, encumbered, passed to Colonel Samuel Shrimpton, 
then the largest landholder in the town; and Shrimpton sold it to 
Colonel Peter Sergeant who built the mansion that became the Province 
House, Colonel Sergeant was an opulent London merchant who 
came to Boston in 1667, and from that time till his death in 1714 




"\r^A^^yt^iSS.,°^ WASHINGTON STREET. THE BUILDING IN THE FOREGROUND 
WAS REMOVED WHEN WASHINGTON STREET WAS CARRIED THROUGH TO 

ADAMS SQUARE 



was a man of consequence in the town. He bought this ample lot 
in 1676, then measuring eighty-six feet on the thoroughfare, nearly 
opposite the head of Milk Street, two hundred and sixty feet northerly, 
seventy-seven westerly, and two hundred and sixty-six southerly, 
for the paltry sum of £350 — contrast this with the values of today! — 
and forty years later, in 1715, the Province acquired from his heirs 
the whole vastly improved estate, with the mansion-house then the 
most remarkable in town, for £2300. As the Province House, it be- 
came the " central scene of the chief pageantries, gaieties, and formali- 
ties of the king's vice-regal court in Boston " ; and Hawthorne has 
immortalized it in his fanciful "Legends." The present Province 
Court and Province Street were originally ways to the stables and 
rear grounds of the mansion when it became the Province House. 
After the Revolution it became the Government House and as such 
was the place of the sittings of the Governor and council for a while. 
Then, given over to commercial uses, it fell in the social scale. At 
length it was utilized for negro minstrelsy, first, in 1852, as '' Ordway 
Hall " under the management of John P. Ordway, who in mature 
life became a local physician of note, and afterward, as "Morris 
Brothers, Pell, and Trowbridge's Opera House " of pleasant memories. 
Finally it was swept away, all but its walls, by a fire in 1864. 

Continuing on this side, we have, according to the Book of Pos- 
sessions, next above the Millard lot: the house and garden of Thomas 
Grubb, leather dresser. Next above Grubb, about on the line of the 
present Bromfield Street : the larger estate of William Aspinwall, 
notary public, and " recorder " after his return from banishment, 
he being one of those banished as an adherent of Mistress Anne 
Hutchinson. Subsequently, Edward Rawson, the Colonial secretary, 
acquired a part of the Aspinwall lot, and his name was given to the 
present Bromfield Street as " Rawson's Lane." It took on the name 
of Bromfield from Edward Bromfield a leading merchant of the Province 
period, after his death, in 1734, in his eighty-sixth year. Mr. Brom- 
field had long been a resident on the lane, his mansion standing on 
the south side, the site afterward occupied by the "Indian Queen 
Tavern," and its successor, the " Bromfield House." 

Again on the east side we have first on the upper corner of Milk 
Street: Robert Reynolds, shoemaker. It was at the easterly end of 
this lot that stood the tenement which Josiah Franklin occupied at 
his first coming with his family about 1685, and was the eminent 
Benjamin's birthplace. Later, dating from about 1673, a little south 
of the present Transcript building : the ' ' Blue Bell and Indian Queen 
Tavern," built on both sides of a narrow passage here cut through 
to Hawley Street. This was a famous inn through a long day extend- 
ing into the nineteenth century. In early stage-coach times it was 
the regular stopping place of various long-distance lines. About 1820 




THE EAST SIDE OF WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM. MILK STREET 

IN 1856 



the ancient tavern was succeeded by the " Washington Coffee House," 
which in the forties was made the terminus of the daily Dorchester 
stages. The coffee house in turn disappeared in the fifties and its 
site was occupied by Messrs. Macullar, WilHams & Company. 

West side again, the earlier occupants between Bromfield and 
Winter Streets : Ephraim Pope, Edmund Dennis, Edward Jacklini 
glazier, after him, in 1646, Nicholas Busbie, worsted weaver, William 




SAVING THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH IN THE GREAT FIRE OF 1872 




t'-^ .•-. 

^.^i: 



















THE PROVINCE HOUSE, ON THE WEST SIDE OF WASHINGTON STREET, PRESENT 
SITE OF PROVINCE COURT 



Townsend, and Richard Parker's widow, all with houses and gardens. 
In the late eighteenth century, nearly opposite the present Franklin 
Street head; the " Rising Sun " tavern, from which early in the nine- 
teenth century evolved the Marlboro Hotel which remained long a 
landmark. 

The inconvenience of carrying on the lectures of Harvard Medical 
School in Cambridge soon brought about the removal of the School 
to Boston. In 1810 the Corporation and Overseers, at the request of 
Drs. Warren and Dexter, who lived in Boston, and against the protest of 
Dr. Waterhouse, who lived in Cambridge, voted that the lectures in 



anatomy and in surgery and in chemistry be delivered in Boston. 
Accordingly a theatre with other rooms was provided by Dr. Warren 
at 49 Marlborough Street (now 400 Washington Street) in Boston, in 
the same building with the hall and library of the Massachusetts 
Medical Society, and hither the instruction of the School was removed^ 

The Colonial Newbury link was similarly marked at first by houses 
and gardens with a few shops. In the Province period it became a 
favorite place for taverns. Earliest of these was the " Lamb Tavern," 
which stood where is now the Adams House. It was built about 
1740, and displayed a large swing sign embellished with a painted 
white lamb. It was made the starting point of the stage-coaches 
of the first Boston and Providence line which began operations in 1767. 
A little above, nearly opposite the head of Hayward Place, was the 
"White Horse," with its sign of a white charger. Above, on the 
opposite side: the "Liberty Tavern," close by the "Liberty Tree," 
where is now Brigham's. Below the " Lamb," where is now Keith's 
"Bijou" annex; the " Grand Turk," of later date, afterward the 
" Lion," and still later the " Red Lion," which flourished till the 
eighteen thirties when it was transformed into a theatre. 

The mixture of Colonial houses, mansions, and shops bordering 
both sides marked the Marlborough link through the eighteenth cen- 
tury and into the nineteenth. The first Boston Directories, — 1789 
and 1796, — listed here merchants, general shopkeepers, tailors, 
leather breeches makers, apothecaries, booksellers and stationers, 
bookbinders, leather dressers, brass founders, saddlers, pewterers. 




"-■• • '■"'""''"'iMMBjII^' 



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B^I9^ 



EAST SIDE OF WASHINGTON STREET IN 1860, FROM MACULLAR PARKER & COMPANY 
BUILDING TO SUMMER STREET 



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WASHINGTON STREET, FROM. SCHOOL TO STATE STREETS, IN 1850, SHOWING OLD 
CORNER BOOKSTORE AT LEFT 



crockery ware dealers, hardware dealers, goldsmiths and jewellers, 
watch makers, upholsterers and lace manufacturers, mantua makers, 
milliners, hair dressers, brush manufacturers, paper stainers, painters 
and glaziers, masons, housewrights, blacksmiths, cordwainers, grocers, 
bakers, wine stores, physicians, dentists, brokers, school mistresses. 
Among the merchants are found such well-known names as John 
and Thomas Amory, Samuel and Stephen Salisbury, Benjamin Vin- 
cent. Among the booksellers : John Boyle, Joseph Nancrede, William 
Spotswood, David West. Physicians: Dr. John Homans, and Dr. 
Alexander Abercrombie Peters. Ebenezer Hancock, brother of John, 
appears as " keeper of powder house." Among the residents: Ben- 
jamin Hitchborn ; Capt. Eleazer Johnson, Amasa Penneman, and 
Abiel Winship, merchants; John B. Sohier ; Caleb Hopkins, " gentle- 
man " ; and Charles Bulfinch, the architect. 

In 1800 corner estates were thus valued, as Mr. Walter Kendall 
Watkins has quoted : South corner of School Street — fifteen hundred 
and twelve square feet and a two-story wooden house, seven hundred 
and twenty square feet, $4000; South corner of Bromfield Street — 
twenty-seven hundred square feet, a brick house of two stories, twelve 
hundred square feet, all at $2500 ; north corner of Winter Street — a 
brick building of three stories and a wooden building, occupying a lot 
of forty-nine hundred square feet, $4000 ; south corner of Winter 
Street — a two-story brick building seven hundred and eighty square 
feet, land nine hundred square feet, $2000 with the land ; south corner 



of Summer Street — fifty-nine hundred and forty square feet with a 
wood and chaise house four hundred and fifty square feet on Summer 
Street, $5000. 

When in 1824 the Colonial names were finally dropped, and the 
whole thoroughfare took on the name of Washington, the residences 
had practically disappeared from this link and it had become dis- 
tinctively a shopping quarter. Its aspect in the middle of the nine- 
teenth century is faithfully depicted in the " Panoramic Views " which 
we reproduce from " Gleason's Pictorial " of 1853. Here, thanks to 
the honest if not artistic drawing of the delineator, we may readily 
read the signs of all the establishments on either side of the way. 
Picturesquely breaking the line of buildings just above Bromfield 
Street observe the archway at the side of the Marlboro House. This 
led to a paved court in which was the Marlboro Chapel at that time 
occupied by the Lowell Institute. The Chapel had been built originally 
from an L at the rear of the hotel, in the thirties, for the " First Free 
Congregational Church "; and after its abandonment for church uses 
it became the rendezvous of the various ultra organizations which 




WASHINGTON STREET AFTER THE GREAT FIRE OF 1872, SHOWING M.ACULLAR PARKER 
& COMPANY BUILDING AT THE RIGHT 









h^'^'M 




THE ENTRANCE TO THE BOSTON THEATRE IN 1856 



flourished in Boston in the thirties and forties — the "lean hungry 
savage anti-everything " association, as was Dr, Holmes's phrase. 
The Lowell Institute first occupied it in 1846, when it was renovated, 
and here the Lowell Institute Lectures were regularly given till 1879, 
when the Chapel disappeared. And here was the Lowell Institute's 
free drawing -school from the life, established in 1850, and conducted 
with rare genius by William Hollingsworth through its whole career 
of more than a quarter of a century. On the east side, above the 
opening of Franklin Street, in the establishment of " G. W. Warren 
& Co., Importers, Jobbers, and Retailers," we have the forerunner 
of the great dry goods " emporiums " of the modern day. This site 
in the next decade was occupied by Macullar, Williams & Parker. 

In the decade of 1860-70 marked changes were effected in the 
architectural appearance of the link, and its valuation increased, with 
the erection of larger, loftier, and more attractive buildings of modern 
design, some of granite, some of iron, one of marble front, in place of 
most of the plain old ones. Then the " Great Fire of 1872," making 
Washington Street its west bound, swept off all on the east side from 
Summer to Milk Street, leaving only a broken front wall here and there 
standing in the midst of huge heaps of ruins. The great white marble 
facade of the Macullar, Williams & Parker building alone withstood 
the fury of the flames, and remained a monument of the devastation 
here till its removal for the widening of this link of the thoroughfare. 
The spread of the fire below Milk Street was checked by the blowing 



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. - 1 1 1 ! I 

fin nifiiHiiiM 




THE ADAMS HOUSE IN 1856 



up of the old building that had been long occupied by Messrs. Currier 
& Trott on the south corner. The Old South Meetinghouse, while 
saved, suffered blown-out windows and other slight hurts, from the 
effect of the explosion across the way. 

An exhibition of generosity and thoughtfulness on the part of the 
hundreds of employees of Macullar, Williams & Parker was a note- 
worthy incident of the disaster, among many, illustrating the fine 
temper of the community, as well as the cordiality of the relations 
existing between employer and employed in this house. The relation 
is that of the Daily Advertiser of November 14: " It is the custom of 
large tailoring establishments, and among them that of Macullar, 
Williams & Parker, to make out their payrolls on Saturdays and pay 
their employees on Mondays. Since the fire it was uniformly agreed 
among the girls who were employed by this firm, partly in considera- 
tion of past liberality toward them on the part of their employers, to 
decline to accept their wages for last week's work, thinking that the 
sum in the aggregate might be acceptable in consideration of their 
heavy losses. On the other hand, the members of the firm, solicitous 
for the welfare of those whose losses might be small but sufferings 
great, told Miss Jennie Collins [the noble-hearted retired workwoman 




A SECTION OF WASHINGTON STREET, BETWEEN WATER AND STATE 
STREETS, IN 1850 



then maintaining the helpful institution of her own founding — her 
" Boffin's Bower," for working girls] to send to them any workgirls, 
and particularly their own, who might be in need, and they would 
provide for them. This statement is made to show the good feeling 
existing between employers and employed, and to correct a possible 
misconception of the case as stated in an afternoon paper." 

The burned off side was speedily rebuilt finer, more substantial, 
and safer than before. 



MACULLAR, PARKER & COMPANY. 

The house of Macullar, Parker &. Company was founded in 1848 
by Addison Macullar, who opened in the city of Worcester in that 
year a small store (at a rental of $250) for the sale of ready-made 
clothing at retail, under the style of A. Macullar & Company. 

In 1852 George B. Williams, who had formerly been a fellow 
clerk with Mr. Macullar, became associated with him in the business, 
and the style of the firm was thereupon changed to Macullar, Williams 
& Company. In 1852 the firm opened a house in Boston for the manu- 
facture and sale of clothing at wholesale. The store occupied at that 
time was Nos. 35 and 37 Ann, the present North, Street. In 1854 
they moved to Milk Street, occupying the building then No. 47, 



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THE EAST AND WEST SIDES OF WASHINGTON STREET, FROM MILK TO SUMMER 

STREETS, IN 1852 







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RUINS 



OF THE MACULLAR PARKER & COMPANY BUILDING AFTER THE GREAT FIRE 

OF 1872 




WASHINGTON STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM SCHOOL STREET, IN 1910 



In November, 1857, during the great financial panic of that period, 
they engaged temporarily the old Washington Coffee House building 
on Washington Street for the purpose of disposing of their surplus 
stock of clothing at retail. This was the first stock of clothing of any 
extent that had ever been opened on Washington Street ; and the 
immediate and large business which was developed induced the firm 
to give up the wholesale business, and to settle permanently on Wash- 
ington Street and cater exclusively to the best class of retail trade. 

In 1860, the old quarters having become insufficient, a removal 
was made to No. 192 Washington Street, the store which had previously 
been occupied by George W. Warren & Company for the retail dry 
goods business. At this time the style of the firm was changed to 
Macullar, Williams & Parker, which remained unaltered for nineteen 
years, Mr. Charles W. Parker who had been associated with the busi- 
ness from its commencement as boy, bookkeeper and salesman, 
being admitted to the firm and becoming the managing partner. 




JOY'S BUILDING, WASHINGTON STREET, NEAR COURT STRKEl, IN iBfa'J 



In 1864, this store also having become too small for their growing 
business, another removal was made to the building on the adjoining 
premises, which had been erected for the firm by the trustees of the 
Sears Estate. This was the edifice which was destroyed, with most 
of its contents, in the Great Fire of November 9, 1872. The present 
building was rebuilt upon substantially the same plan as the one 
destroyed, but with some modifications and improvements. 

In 1884 the adjoining building. No. 398, formerly 192, becoming 
vacant by the retirement from business of Palmers & Batchelders, 
was annexed to the main building and occupied by the custom tailoring 
department for which, with the new department for the sale of Stetsor 
Hats, it is occupied at the present time, 

The departments of the business are Mens', Youths', Boys' and 
Juvenile clothing at retail. Mens' and Boys' Furnishing Goods, 
Custom Tailoring for Men and Women, Stetson Hats, Wholesale 
Woolens and Tailors' Trimmings. 

The upper stories of both buildings are used for the cutting and 
manufacturing of clothing and for the shrinking of fabrics by the 
London Process. 




WASHINGTON STREET FROM SUMMER STREET IN 1870 




AVON PLACE, NOW AVON STREET, IN 1856. 



C. B. WEBSTER & COMPANY, PRINTERS, BOSTON 



014 076 992 7 




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Mai Run H)S.2193 



